Jochi’s ulus kept Russia paying tribute for centuries
The Golden Horde—Ulus of Jochi, self-named Ulug Ulus or “Great State”—began as the Mongol Empire’s northwestern share and Turkicized into a steppe khanate. Batu Khan expanded the Blue Horde; after his 1255 death the dynasty held a century before the Great Troubles (1359–1381).
The core of the khanate was the land left to Chinggis Khan's son Jochi, who died in 1225. Batu Khan enlarged it enormously, and once the Mongol Empire fractured in 1259 it acted as an independent state, taking the place of the looser Cuman–Kipchak confederation. At its height it reached from Siberia and Central Asia to the Danube, and from the Urals down to the Black Sea and Caspian, touching the Caucasus and the lands of the Ilkhanate. Its army was strongest under Özbeg Khan, who reigned from 1312 to 1341 and converted to Islam.
Batu's line held together for about a century after his death in 1255, despite a partial civil war stirred by Nogai in the late 1290s. Then came the Great Troubles of 1359 to 1381, a short revival under Tokhtamysh, and a fatal blow from Timur's invasion of 1396. By 1466 the remnant was simply the Great Horde, and a patchwork of mostly Turkic khanates grew up in its place. That disunity let Moscow shake off Tatar overlordship at the Great Stand on the Ugra in 1480, the traditional end of Mongol rule over Russia. The Crimean and Kazakh khanates lasted until Russia absorbed them in 1783 and 1847.
The famous name was not used at the time. The state called itself the Great State, Ulugh Ulus. Golden Horde comes via Russian Zolotaya Orda, itself possibly from Turkic Altan Orda, golden camp; the gold may refer to war tents, a gilded tent of Batu or Özbeg, the khan's wealth, or imperial rank, since other colours signalled directions. The Russian term first shows up in 1565 in the History of Kazan, referring to Batu's realm around Sarai. Earlier Russian writers just said Tatars, while Persian and Armenian texts spoke of the Ulus of Jochi or the Qipchaq Steppe.
Even the wing colours are muddled. Russian chronicles called the eastern wing the Blue Horde, Timurid writers called it the White Horde, and Western scholars followed the Timurids. The Khwarazmian historian Ötemish Hajji, who knew the khanate's oral lore, sided with the Russians. Orda itself was the Mongol word for a mobile camp; the English sense of a menacing crowd came later.
Source: Golden Horde
